


By Any Other Name

by Black_Crystal_Dragon



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Cute, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Misunderstandings, Nicknames, Non-Sexual Intimacy, POV Eddie Brock, Possessive Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Romance, Sharing a Body, Symbiotic Relationship, but no "on screen" people eating, male pronouns for Venom, or at least attempted humor, references to Venom eating people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 07:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17018631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Crystal_Dragon/pseuds/Black_Crystal_Dragon
Summary: Venom and Eddie’s developing relationship, explored through a series of nicknames.





	By Any Other Name

**Author's Note:**

> I did not want to like this pairing, but then I saw the film and I couldn't help it. Came home, read a lot of fanfiction, learned from said fanfiction that Eddie has nicknames for his symbiote - and then this happened.
> 
> Beta'd by the wonderful [Ice_Elf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ice_Elf/). <3

He had to show his face again at Mrs Chen’s sometime, so he decided to make it sooner rather than later. Rip the band-aid off. The next time he needed groceries, he made his way there.

“Eddie,” she said when he walked in, her eyes passing over him with not much more wariness than usual. “You look better. How’s that parasite?”

Inside him, Venom growled and snapped, rising to just beneath the surface of his skin. Eddie forcefully thought, _No eating Mrs Chen!_ and Venom resolved to petulant stirrings in the pit of his stomach.

“He doesn’t really like the P word,” Eddie admitted.

“He, huh,” Mrs Chen said.

“Yeah?” Eddie said. He eased back from the counter and Mrs Chen’s perceptive stare and retreated down one of the aisles.

He was pretty sure that, whatever kind of alien Venom was, he didn’t have a gender, but for the sake of his own sanity he was using male pronouns while the symbiote was in _his_ body. It seemed somehow less of an invasion of his privacy if he imagined that he was male, as if they had that in common – like maybe the alien being living inside his skin would apply locker-room etiquette. Ha.

The symbiote didn’t seem to care what Eddie referred to him as: he was just confused that Eddie was getting so hung-up on pronouns, and said so.

“It’s a human thing,” Eddie replied, defensive, trying to distract him by grabbing two bags of tater tots.

 **A stupid human thing** , Venom countered, and then left it alone. He didn’t like things he didn’t understand.

~

The nickname was simple, and mostly born out of self-preservation. People gave Eddie funny looks if he shouted ‘Venom’ when they were expecting a ‘Carol’ or a ‘Mike’ or whatever. He already got enough of those, even when he remembered to wear headphones and didn’t forget himself and talk too loudly about chomping on people’s heads – both of which happened way too often. His symbiote was a master at riling him up to the point where he got so focused on their internal conversation that he lost track of his surroundings. He was pretty sure that Venom did it for kicks, enjoying the shock on the faces of innocent passers-by while he fed on the chemical components of Eddie’s embarrassment.

So, yeah, calling him _V_ in public quickly became a thing. The symbiote seemed to like it.

~

The first time Venom manifested a miniature version of his head, it was because Eddie wasn’t fast enough eating their second bar of chocolate in a row. He snaked out a fat tendril from the middle of his chest, formed his head at the end of it and chomped on the bar for himself. Eddie was completely unable to help his snort of laughter.

“Well look at you,” he said when the initial surprise wore off. He rubbed the tip of one finger under Venom’s chin. That earned him a glare and an audible growl, which was even less effective than usual. He broke off another piece of chocolate and held it out. “Here you go, cutie.”

“Not cute,” Venom growled and savaged the chocolate, making a show of his little needle teeth before ripping the last bit out of his grip and swallowing it.

“You kind of are, though.” Eddie couldn’t stop smiling. Venom was tiny and _adorable_.

“Eddie!”

Venom snapped at his fingers. Eddie dodged for a couple of seconds, laughing, before letting him catch his index finger between his teeth. Venom looked up at him, triumphant. His teeth dug in just enough to be a warning without causing real pain, but instead of biting he slathered his tongue over the residue of melted chocolate still on his fingertip.

“Eugh, gross,” Eddie complained as his symbiote let go.

“Not cute,” Venom repeated with a decisive nod. He licked around the satisfied smile stretched across his little face.

“Whatever you say,” Eddie said. He tipped the chocolate towards him. “More?”

“More,” Venom agreed, and let Eddie hand-feed him the rest of the bar.

~

Calling Venom his ‘other half’ was pretty much a joke with himself: a shorthand way to refer to him when talking to other people without freaking anybody out. The first time it happened, he was at the grocery store, trying to stay calm while telling his symbiote that, no, they could not have tater tots and chocolate for dinner five days in a row, when a guy pulling something from one of the freezers smiled in their direction. Eddie returned it, because he could still totally do normal human interactions, look at him go, and gestured at his headphones while Venom was ranting at him.

“Other half’s getting picky about dinner,” he murmured.

The guy shared a weary grimace as he shuffled along the aisle, nodding at his own basket with its combination of pickles, ranch dressing and ice cream. “Tell me about it.”

He’d grinned in amusement, and inside his head Venom fell unexpectedly silent. The little exchange gave Eddie a blessed five minutes of peace to finish shopping without Venom yammering or taking control of his limbs to get his own way. He could sense the gap in his symbiote’s understanding from the way he swirled around his diaphragm, unsettled, but Venom didn’t talk again until they were home and unpacking the groceries.

 **What was so funny?** Venom demanded. He shifted, seething just beneath Eddie’s skin all across his back. It was all the aggression of having someone crowd up against his back without the physical sensation, and his shoulders instinctively hunched, but he was getting used to Venom’s tactics now. He took a deep breath, made himself relax and carried on taking items out of the bags.

“Nothing,” he said. “It was just a misunderstanding.”

 **Explain** , Venom said in a low, dangerous voice. He coiled deeper into Eddie’s torso.

“Look, don’t get all – the way you get,” Eddie said, picturing some of Venom’s more obnoxious rages to give his symbiote an idea of what he meant. Venom growled and simmered. “Just, that guy thought I meant ‘other half’ like as in ‘romantic partner’, and then he thought that he and I were in a similar situation, since you were asking for, God, tater tots and chocolate _yet again_ –”

 **I like tater tots and chocolate, we should eat them all the time** , Venom said.

Now they’d been together for a little while, Eddie was getting better at sorting through the bassy rumble of Venom’s internal voice to pick up tone, and there was a definite whine in those words. He smiled and shook his head. Then the symbiote processed the rest of the explanation and physically bristled: it felt like all his smooth edges had turned into spines that prickled through Eddie’s insides.

 **What do you mean, a similar situation?** he snapped. **Does he have a symbiote? We should go and make sure. And if he has, we should _eat them_.**

“No, God, stop that, _ow_ ,” Eddie grumbled, pressing a hand to his chest and rubbing in a vague attempt to soothe his symbiote. It didn’t really _hurt_ as such, not any worse than heartburn, but it wasn’t a comfortable feeling. He’d rather it stopped. “He doesn’t have a symbiote. His wife or girlfriend or whatever is _pregnant_ , and he thought my ‘other half’ was pregnant too because of the weird food combinations.”

Venom abruptly stopped trying to stick spikes into his organs and Eddie relaxed with a sigh of relief. After a moment, Venom said, **I am not pregnant.**

“No, I know, I got that, V,” Eddie chuckled, patting his stomach where his symbiote had settled, curled up beneath the skin. “That’s why it’s funny. ‘Cause he got it so wrong.”

There was quiet. Then Venom said, **Oh.**

Eddie half expected there to be some crack about Earth humour, but it didn’t come.

~

Sometimes he just didn’t pay enough attention.

He’d stopped off at Mrs Chen’s to pick up some more coffee. Venom hated it, but Venom hated a lot of things and symbiosis was about compromise. He let Venom occasionally eat a bad dude; Venom didn’t give him grief over drinking coffee. _Compromise_. It was a work in progress. He was walking back through the store when his eye snagged on a tray of discounted chocolate bars, and he reached out without even really thinking about it – and on this occasion _not_ because of his symbiote – to grab a handful.

 **Seventy percent dark?** Venom asked, radiating curiosity, while Mrs Chen was ringing everything up.

“Only the best for you, babe,” Eddie murmured, and then had to go over the words to figure out why his symbiote was _purring_ all through his chest, the vibrations of his satisfaction rippling out through the whole of Eddie’s body.

Mrs Chen smiled as she handed over the change. “Nice to see you and your ‘parasite’ getting along, Eddie.”

“Uh, yeah,” he said, heat flashing up the back of his neck while Venom muttered, half-heartedly, about not being a parasite. Eddie grabbed the bag and booked it out of the store, Venom’s pleasure still humming in the back of his head, making him smile.

~

It had to happen eventually. Back when he was making the Brock Report, sources flirting with him had been a semi-regular boost to his ego. He was well aware that it was more because he was a Z-list ‘celebrity’ than because they actually wanted him in particular, but that in itself was a weird kind of compliment – or at least, he was going to take it that way.

So it was only a matter of time after his return to journalism before _somebody_ decided to feed him a line to see if he was going to bite. When it did, though.

 **YOU ARE MINE** , Venom rumbled, his voice loud and harsh enough to make Eddie wince and wish that putting his hands over his ears would help.

Louise, the pretty blonde woman he had been interviewing who had just laid her hand over his and suggested that he stay for a drink, suddenly looked mortified. Eddie internally cursed his inability to control his stupid face. She thought he was grimacing at her offer, which – no. Not at all. He’d spent long enough so self-sabotaging and pathetic and undateable that he’d forgotten what it was like to catch someone’s eye, even if it was just because of his alleged fame, so if anything, he was flattered.

“Sorry, uh, I got the ringer on this thing set a little too loud,” Eddie said, gesturing vaguely at the earbud he’d kept in as insurance against just this sort of Venom outburst. He slid out of the booth and took a few steps away as he pretended to activate a call. “ _What_?”

**MINE, EDDIE.**

“Could you not, when I’m working?” he growled. Venom’s irrational anger was so fierce that it was bleeding through into him, stoking his annoyance.

 **This is not work,** his symbiote snapped. **This is … _socialising_.**

“It is not,” Eddie hissed. The coffee shop they were in was not that big and, thanks to the pest problem he was investigating, not that busy. He took a few deliberate steps closer to the door, away from Louise. “Look, it’s not a big deal –”

 **Yes it is,** Venom interrupted. **You want to say yes.**

“I can’t talk about this right now,” Eddie said. So maybe he had, ever so briefly, entertained the fantasy of having coffee with someone who was attractive and interested. What was so wrong with that?

 **Because you are _mine_** , Venom hissed, interrupting his thoughts.

“I am in the middle of an interview,” Eddie replied through gritted teeth. He was really aware that Louise was still sitting only a few feet behind him, and carefully lowered his voice. “I have to stay professional.”

Which meant both that he couldn’t have the screaming argument that Venom was spoiling for, and also that he wasn’t going to accept his interviewee’s offer in the first place.

“So can you stop being the thought police and back off for a God-damned minute?” he hissed.

Venom didn’t reply in words: he just snarled and coiled around Eddie’s spine, little feelers tingling through the muscles and bones all over his body. When he tried to move, they resisted but didn’t actually stop him, just made him hyper-aware of the symbiote’s presence under his skin. He shook his head and carefully schooled his face back to calm before he returned to the table.

Louise’s expression had shifted from embarrassment to concern. He hated that she’d overheard enough to know something was wrong, or that it was so obvious from his face.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Eddie lied, and smiled through the rage that was still leeching into him from his symbiote. “Sorry about that. So, um. I have a deadline on this piece, and while I would love some coffee right about now, I’m going to have to pass. But thanks.”

“Oh,” she said, and then tried to cover her disappointment with a laugh. “Right – yeah, of course. You’re Eddie Brock, you’re busy!”

“Unfortunately,” Eddie said and allowed himself to feel a pang of regret despite knowing it wouldn’t help things with Venom. He was proved right when the symbiote’s presence wrapped deeper into the tissues of his body, coiling intimately around his lungs and heart. His tendrils tightened their grip everywhere. It felt like the stretch of a pulled muscle but all over.

Time to leave, before Venom decided to take his anger out on Louise instead of Eddie. He said his goodbyes, collected his stuff and walked away.

A throbbing growl accompanied him, and remained a constant low buzz nestled against the base of his skull all the way home.

“V,” he sighed once the door was closed behind them. The pressure inside of him didn’t let up. “Venom, c’mon.”

The symbiote shifted, and then the tightness was gone as he retracted and coiled up in the centre of Eddie’s chest, twitching and sharp-edged.

Eddie leaned back against the door and stared up at the ceiling, trying to understand. He thought Venom wasn’t angry any more – or at least, not as white-hot with it as he had been at the coffee shop – but it was hard to get a fix on what he _was_ feeling. Eddie could do physical sensations just fine: _hunger_ and _cold_ and _pain_. Emotions were harder to recognise. They slotted against one another in ways that human feelings didn’t connect at all. He knew _rage_ , obviously, and _boredom_. He was starting to get familiar with _contentment_ – or at least, he hoped that the human concept approximately lined up with what he felt from Venom when they had both eaten their fill and were warm and quiet together. Everything else was a crapshoot.

And now Venom was giving him the silent treatment.

It felt worse, somehow, than it ever had with another person. Maybe because the yawning quiet was coming from inside of himself. It felt like Venom was actively cutting himself off from Eddie in all but the most essential ways, sharing nothing except what he required to stay alive. The space in his head that Venom normally took up was empty, but there was emotion leaking out of the symbiote. Eddie was pretty sure that was beyond their control. It slowly dripped in his chest and as it did, for all that it was utterly alien, Eddie suddenly knew what was wrong.

He’d hurt Venom’s feelings.

He slid down to sit on the floor. He’d thought Venom was just being his usual obnoxious self. It hadn’t occurred to him even for a second that Venom would be upset, of all things, if he wanted to pursue someone. He tentatively tried to give him a mental poke by thinking his name – _Venom?_ – hoping to get something, anything.

Venom didn’t budge. He was still trying to retract, to curl in, but he couldn’t make his heaving mind completely still. Eddie closed his eyes and focused inwards.

With glacial slowness the edges of concepts brushed against his consciousness. _Threat – Rival – Division – Loss – Fear_. They were abstract, but maybe Eddie was starting to acclimatise to the lens of Venom’s mind, because he got it. He got it.

“Venom, I’m sorry,” he said out loud, devastated.

Sorry wasn’t enough, when he’d made his symbiote feel like this. He hadn’t realised that his desire for an intimate relationship with another human, however fleeting and superficial, would make Venom feel vulnerable. That Venom might take his irritation at being so forcefully interrupted as a sign of regret about their bond. That he might imagine for a second that Eddie wanted him _gone_.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. The darkness behind his closed lids was nothing like Venom, too still and uniform. He swallowed and tried again. “I didn’t mean it like that when I told you to back off.”

Still nothing from Venom.

“I didn’t really want to have coffee with her,” he murmured. “Or anybody.”

As he spoke, he realised how much he meant it. He hadn’t thought about staying for coffee because it was something he really wanted. It was a what-if scenario, to be entertained only briefly before it was dismissed, the same way he’d turned down flirtation when he was with Anne. He might not have her now, but he didn’t miss dating. He didn’t even miss what they once had together any more.

He didn’t need it. Not with another person.

He already had someone to come home to, who could share his crappy days and his successes more literally than anybody else on Earth. Someone to look out for and take care of, who’d always have his back in return. He had _Venom_. They’d been bickering like they’d been married for fifty years practically since they met.

He concentrated on opening up his mind, letting those thoughts flow as loudly as possible, as he whispered, “We’re enough.”

Finally, cautiously, Venom loosened from the knot he had compressed himself into, and Eddie let out a sigh of relief that was on the edge of being a sob. He tucked his arms around his chest and held on as Venom’s mind nudged against his. The muted grumble of his thoughts returned, running a ceaseless undercurrent to Eddie’s and shutting out the lonely quiet.

 **We** , Venom said, his tone caught somewhere in the wilderness between statement and question. Eddie screwed his eyes more tightly closed.

“Yeah,” he said feverishly. “You and me.”

~

Sometimes, their dreams overlapped and bled into one another. The landscapes of other planets peeking in through the windows of Eddie’s college apartment. A commuter crowd of writhing symbiotes surrounding him on the trolley. It always seemed totally normal until he woke up, and then it was kind of funny.

Other times, they had straight-up shared nightmares.

_Eddie was on the rocket launch platform, Riot’s blade sticking out of his chest, and he was just alive enough for his mouth to form Venom’s name as the symbiote rippled across the concrete towards him. His bristling form – hurting, hurting in the toxic atmosphere without a host – reached for his fingertips._

_Too late. Eddie was dead._

_Dead, but somehow still watching through his own glassy eyes as Venom tried to bond, over and over, forcing tendrils into his skin only to be rejected by the lifeless tissue. The symbiote’s inky body formed into ever more erratic spines of distress. There was no sound at all, but every part of him was drawn into a long, ragged scream._

Eddie opened his eyes to Venom: shivering across his skin, pooling along his breastbone, wrapping his legs and arms and fingers in tendrils, his voice stuck in a loop of **Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie –**

“Oh, darling,” he said. He rolled onto his side, pulling his arms in around his chest, where the majority of Venom had manifested. He pressed his hands to the sheet of black to hold him. “I’m here. You got me.”

 ** _Eddie_** , Venom shuddered – all over, inside and outside – and clung to him, more coils reaching out and winding delicately around his neck, folding across his back. Eddie curled himself up into a ball and smoothed his hands over and through his symbiote’s body as Venom trembled between solid and permeable.

“It’s okay,” he promised as pieces of Venom slipped upwards, covering the pulse point in his throat and caressing his jaw, his cheek, dragging over his mouth as he talked. “Just a dream. It didn’t happen, you got to me.”

Mostly he was reassuring his symbiote, but there was a part of him that needed to say it aloud to remind himself that it was true. The dream had crawled out of both of their memories, after all, and it wasn’t just Venom who’d been left shaking. Eddie’s heart pounded. Fear and horror and the memory of pain were thick against the back of his throat. Even with Venom’s touch to soothe him and his own voice murmuring reminders that everything was fine, it took long minutes for them both to relax.

 **Eddie** , Venom said – sighed, purred – as he slowly returned to his usual self.

“We’re okay,” Eddie told him. He nuzzled his face into the nearest piece of Venom, which obligingly softened and pressed back, returning the affection.

Parts of him were starting to retreat back under Eddie’s skin, little tickles of sensation across his legs and scalp, but mostly he remained wrapped around him and in his arms. He was skin-warm and glossy, formless – and apparently really into the cuddling.

 **You like it** , Venom rumbled, teasing, and then added, **_We_ like it. **

Caught out, Eddie hid his smile in the dark mass of his symbiote’s body and closed his eyes. “Shut up.”

He found himself yawning through the words, calm and safe enough to feel drowsy. He shifted, stretching out and finding a comfortable position with Venom cradled against his chest. The last thought in his head wasn’t his at all: it was Venom’s voice, telling him to sleep.

~

To Eddie’s dismay, Anne hadn’t dropped him the instant the Life Foundation debacle was over. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she had: he was the loser who’d ruined her career and then crawled back six months later with an alien inside of him to cause more trouble. She didn’t owe him so much as the time of day. Yet, she stayed in contact, checking in with texts, phone calls and a few face-to-face meetings, to make sure he was okay post-Venom – or, as far as _she_ was aware, post-Venom. Eventually he found himself invited to dinner.

While they were getting coffee one afternoon, she casually asked if he was doing anything on Friday and hit him with the invitation after he admitted he wasn’t busy. It was accept or admit that he was dodging her company – which he didn’t want to do – so he spent the intervening three days trying to find a way to get out of it.

He didn’t come up with anything, and while getting ready on Friday night he managed to inadvertently offend his symbiote with the idea that they could pretend to be sick.

 **You cannot get sick! I would heal you!** Venom protested.

Eddie glared at his face in the mirror above the sink. Venom wasn’t actually covering him, just fiddling with the signals between his ocular nerve and his brain to superimpose his image. That should probably have been more disturbing than he found it, but he hadn’t even jumped this time when black rippled into place over his skin. Venom had appeared the second Eddie even considered faking illness.

“Anne doesn’t know that. She doesn’t even know you’re still around!”

Venom’s eyes narrowed. **But if she finds out, she will think I am doing a poor job of keeping you healthy.**

“She’s not going to find out – and what do you care what Anne thinks about you anyway? Last she heard, you were eating my organs from the inside,” Eddie reminded him.

 **I wasn’t!** Venom bellowed. Eddie raised his eyebrows, and somehow that ferocious face full of teeth shrank into a contrite expression. **I fixed you.**

“Yeah, you did,” Eddie sighed.

He was a dick for bringing it up: Venom hated thinking about that. Eddie couldn’t often get a sense of what his symbiote was thinking, not like Venom could read him, but right now the thoughts were so loud and intrusive that it was easy to grasp the shape of them. He’d failed to take proper care of his host. His ignorance – about human physiology, about their _potential_ together – had harmed Eddie. Could have killed him.

Eddie hadn’t realised he still felt so guilty about it, but that did explain why he was reluctant to even pretend that they were sick.

He wanted to apologise. He didn’t blame Venom for what he’d done at first, before he knew any better – they were beyond that now. Venom came back, even when Eddie pushed him away. Betrayed his own kind to save Eddie’s planet, just so they could be together. He’d chosen _him_ , with full knowledge and acceptance of all his faults. He needed Venom to know how much that meant to him, even if he couldn’t put it into words. He closed his eyes and focused hard on those thoughts until they rang so loud inside his head that his symbiote couldn’t overlook them.

When he opened his eyes again, Venom was still hogging the mirror, but there was a vulnerability to the shape of his eyes and mouth, the tilt of his head. Eddie hadn’t noticed the slow tightening of his chest alongside his symbiote’s discomfort, but suddenly he could breathe easy again now that Venom’s anxiety wasn’t constricting his lungs.

He picked up his razor, cleared his throat and changed the subject. “C’mon, move. I need to shave if we’re doing this.”

As Venom’s image melted back into Eddie’s features, his forgiveness filtered into him too, warming him from the inside. He smiled at himself in the mirror – at _them_ , deliberately focusing on the space in his head where they joined. The slow burst of Venom’s gratitude – relief – happiness expanded in his mind and altered the way he saw the bags under his eyes and the lines around his mouth and eyes, the grey in his hair. His smile pulled wider and he ducked his head. He couldn’t meet his own gaze and the open affection there. He wasn’t sure who it belonged to.

 **Us** , Venom rumbled.

“V,” he breathed as embarrassed, delighted laughter caught in his throat. He swallowed and dared to glance back up. “Yeah. _Us_.”

~

The awkwardness at dinner was Eddie’s fault. He couldn’t even blame it on Venom: on the ride over, he’d talked him through some social conventions so he understood that complaining about the food would be rude and drinking a glass of the wine they’d brought would be expected, and without Eddie even asking he’d gone quiet when they reached the doorstep. He watched the meal through Eddie’s eyes with every sign of interest, but there was none of his usual commentary.

It just felt weird, being a guest in the house where he used to live. Seeing the woman he’d wanted to marry with another man. He felt self-conscious, like he was intruding where he wasn’t welcome, even though he’d been invited.

The wine helped, and so did Anne and Dan going out of their way to put him at ease, until at last his brain stopped reminding him that Dan probably thought he was a creepy lobster-eating has-been and that Anne almost certainly still hated him, and he could actually enjoy their company and the delicious meal Dan had cooked. It was still weird, and he was sure it always would be a little, but it was bearable. By the end of the evening he was pleasantly surprised to find that, far from the disaster he’d expected, he’d had a good time.

“Keep in touch,” Dan said as the three of them moved into the hall to say goodnight.

“Yeah,” Eddie mumbled, only half meaning it. He didn’t want to be a burden – but he also didn’t want to lie to them any more than he had already. He felt bad enough about keeping Venom a secret. He offered Dan a handshake. “Hey, thanks for the great dinner.”

He found himself dragged into a brief, one-armed hug.

“You’re welcome,” Dan said as he clapped Eddie’s shoulder and then let go. “You’ll have to come back and try my apple pie sometime.”

“It was good to see you Eddie. Take care,” Anne said, smiling as she wrapped her arms around him for a moment.

“Yeah, you too,” Eddie said as she drew back. He even managed a smile of his own.

When he opened the front door, the cold hit him like a physical force. He shivered, shoving his hands into his pockets and hunkering down inside his jacket before he crossed the threshold. He glanced back at Anne and Dan, huddled behind him.

“Don’t stand there letting all the heat out,” he said, because Anne hated the cold.

“All right, we’ll see you off from the window,” she said, a little relieved. Before she closed the door, she added, “Text us when you get home, let us know you got there okay.”

“I will,” he promised.

He trotted down the steps to his bike and pulled on his helmet, snapping the visor closed to shut out more of the icy wind. He was about to climb on when he felt a sensation like forming goosebumps ripple through him, and paused.

Venom was manifesting all over his skin, wrapping him in a layer of living warmth that stretched everywhere under his clothes and even under the helmet. The symbiote hesitated when he reached the cuffs of his coat, but then he remembered gloves and tendrils slipped down to encase his hands. Eddie admired the oil-black coating, bending his fingers and smiling as Venom moved with him, smoother and softer than any cloth. Warmer, too. He was almost completely covered, just a narrow window left around his eyes behind the shield of his visor. It wasn’t like the times when Venom took over, but the feeling of being cocooned in safety was the same.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” he murmured. He could feel his symbiote’s form against his lips as he talked, and the touch tingled against his nerves almost like a kiss.

 **You are welcome** , Venom rumbled. He squeezed his grip tighter for a moment in a full-body hug. Eddie chuckled: he could feel how proud Venom was of his idea. He loved protecting his host, in big ways and small, but more than that he liked to prove that he was more than a parasite. He loved when Eddie could see or feel the evidence that their partnership went both ways.

“I know it does,” Eddie reassured him as he got onto the bike, earning himself another all-over hug and a contented purr.

He waved to Anne and Dan through their front window as he pulled away. The cut of the wind didn’t even register through Venom skin, so he grinned and revved the engine, speeding through the chilled city on his way home.

~

Eddie woke up. For once, there was no shrill alarm coming out of his phone. He wasn’t fighting his way out of a nightmare. He didn’t need to immediately pee. There wasn’t even ravenous hunger tearing at his insides to force him out of bed.

Instead, there was warmth flowing over his back and shoulders, and a touch not quite like fingers running through his hair. As he became aware of it, the light pressure and heat moved to gather across his chest so he could cradle Venom’s amorphous form in his arms.

“Morning, love,” he murmured.

His voice was sleep-rough and his symbiote shivered at the sound of it, or maybe at the endearment that had slipped out as naturally as breathing. Eddie should probably have been more conflicted about it, but it just felt honest – especially when Venom was lying like an oil slick across the whole of his chest and radiating affection back at him. He dragged his fingers over his symbiote’s skin, firm enough to leave behind indentations, just the way they both liked. He was always grateful when Venom indulged the human need for touch, and he’d taken the time to work out how best to thank him for it. He kept going, digging in deeper until Venom purred and writhed, catching his hands in the formless shape of his body. The pleasure hadn’t tipped into overstimulation yet, so Eddie squeezed gently, teasing.

 **Eddie!** Venom protested, delight rumbling through their bond.

“I got you,” Eddie promised. He kneaded his fingers, working against his symbiote’s grip. “Let me take care of you.”

Venom relaxed, rippling and then pushing into his palms while a jumble of _more-yes-Eddie_ that wasn’t quite words spilled over through their bond, as if what he was feeling was suddenly too much to contain. Eddie grinned and went to work massaging as much of Venom as he could reach: scrubbing the blunt tips of his fingers across the surface of his body and plunging his hands deep into his softened structure to rub him down from the inside out. In response, his symbiote squirmed and surged against his chest and hands, the bass line of his thoughts a constant drone of non-verbal satisfaction.

“Good?” Eddie asked after a few minutes as he started to slow.

 **Good** , Venom agreed. **My turn.**

Eddie chuckled and continued smoothing over the expanse of Venom’s body where it was pooled on top of him. He was almost as boneless himself from a combination of good sleep and the borrowed endorphins from Venom’s massage.

“Not sure I need it, love,” he said.

That time was deliberate, and in response Venom slipped out from under his hands and coalesced into the shape of a head that hovered over Eddie’s face on a column of interconnected strands that disappeared into their chest. Milky eyes opened and a familiar grin split Venom’s face apart.

“We like that name,” he said out loud.

“Yeah,” Eddie agreed, tangling the fingers of one hand in the threads of Venom’s elongated neck and lifting the other to stroke over the back of his head. He couldn’t stop smiling. “Yeah, we do.”


End file.
